Journal
Trade fairs, auctions, gemmology and ethics: notes from the House.
Our Ethical Apps
There are many ethical apps in food, cosmetics, recycling, fashion… Lockdown is a good opportunity to question ourselves and do something about it.
Highest quality items outperform at Geneva jewel sales
GENEVA, May 2019 – The Geneva magnificent jewelry auctions in May revealed brisk demand for the highest quality jewels and colored gemstones, but some…
Piat CEO urges gem labs to seek common standards
Emmanuel Piat, CEO of Paris-based gemstone supplier Piat and a Vice President of the CIBJO Coloured gemstones committee, appeals to the international…
Getting the magic of colored stones for one evening
Maison Piat’s events Nov 2018 – The Hotel Plaza Athénée held an event for the launch of a luxury magazine’s winter edition. 200 people gathered in Le…
Comment faire preuve d’un sourcing responsable dans les pierres de couleur ?
La filière des pierres de couleurs se conforme de plus en plus à des normes en termes d’éthique et de certification d’origine, en vue de répondre…
Going to Madagascar: a journey into ethics
Madagascar exports more than a thousand tons of gemstones a year. Because at Piat, ethics is a cause close to our heart, we regularly go check by…
Gem Lab reports and commercial responsibility
The price of untreated coloured gemstones has increased exponentially in the last decades. As a result, demand is increasingly selective and requires…
Kashmir sapphires’ cut
Sometimes you can guess that a sapphire comes from Kashmir just with a glance at its specific cut. This cut is typical of old European standards and…
Why attending GemGenève in 2019
Welcome to GemGenève. This new show met the challenge of creating a new meeting place for gems and antique jewelry traders. Good choices were made on…
Tanzania: a wall for more ethics
Tanzania is the number one producer of Tanzanite worldwide. Despite this production, Tanzania only ranks third for exportation, with 38 million…
“Umba” Sapphires: a unique color and a unique story
Connaissez-vous l’histoire des saphirs Umba ? Leurs couleurs étonnantes et uniques, notamment l’orange, ont captivé de nombreux négociants et…
A word with Piat’s gem cutters
Let’s walk through the door of Maison Piat’s lapidary workshop and meet with Nuon, Léa, Liselotte and Phrom, all gem cutters who kindly agreed to…
Blockchain’s promises
Blockchain theory appeared in the early 1990’s and in 2008, amid a global financial crisis, a decentralized version was implemented with Bitcoin. At…
Cultural event: The jewels of the Crown
Last November, the Piat team went to the Louvre Museum to rediscover the jewels of the Crown of France. With Capucine Juncker, gemologist and founder…
The 2017 CIBJO Congress
The Congress took place in Bangkok in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Thai Minister of Trade, from 5 to 7 November 2017. One of the major…
The World Ruby Forum
The World Ruby Forum was held in Bangkok on November 4 and our team from Piat Thailand attended it. The participants were welcomed by the Thai…
Latest auction records
A 28.04 ct Padparadscha sapphire at Christie’s sale in Magnificent Jewels & The Pink Promise on 28 November 2017. A 28.04 ct Padparadscha sapphire…
Stability of Padparadscha Sapphire Color
L’instabilité de la couleur du saphir Padparadscha remet-elle en cause son appellation ? Très recherchée et convoitée, cette pierre d’exception doit…
The “Cutting” Minute
Since the dawn of time, Mankind has polished and cut gemstones to adorn its jewellery. Tutankhamun’s burial mask testifies to it, with its calibrated…
The grandidierite
According with a hardness of 7 to 8, Grandiderite could be used in jewelry. But the gemme quality is extremely rare and locate in particular in…
Latest auctions: new records
The colored gemstones market is often pointed at for its total lack of transparency. While a broad documentation about diamonds can easily be found…
CSR, the basics
Sustainable Development …. An old-fashioned expression. Everybody talks about “sustainable development” without even knowing what it means anymore. So…
Oil and resin: how to understand
Emerald is a stone appreciated for its “gardens”, but these inclusions are whitish and can alter the general color of the stone. Filling cracks with…
A little bit of arithmetic
The change of shape and/or faceting is an extremely common demand for stone cutter. Each stone has different characteristics (dimensions, number and…
“Old mines” emeralds
Historically speaking, it hasn’t been unusual to confuse Colombian emeralds with the “old mine” emeralds associated with the Hindu Maharajahs. What…
Emeralds of Exception: an ever-growing value
We examined the development of Colombian emerald prices in major auctions over a 15-year period, focusing on lots with the highest bids (five lots per…
Auction’s focus: a sapphire from Kashmir
We have seen a surge in auction prices since the early 2000’s. The records achieved by the coloured diamonds are the most publicised, but others…
Daniel Piat in 1961
This year, the Ministry of Agriculture, on which the mines depend, authorised the Chamber of Commerce laboratory to award a diploma with the aim of…
New perspectives in Myanmar face to the US embargo lifting
Following the lifting of the US embargo signed by US President Barack Obama at the beginning of October 2016, which blocked the import of jade, rubies…
The Greenery Trend
According to the Pantone Color Institute, this year’s colour will be Greenery. A very spring-like soft green, evocative of renewal and nature.…